020 - The Online 'Safety' Act doesn't make any sense
Because 'safety' does not actually exist
We recently made a submission to the Statutory Review of the Online Safety Act 2021. This is the Act that saw the ‘e-safety Commissioner’, Julie Inman Grant, stoush publicly with Elon Musk, and lose.
It is a statute typical of the Australian Government. It seeks to give an unelected bureaucrat as broad and unchecked power as possible to curb anything at all that the Australian Government does not like, using something that does not exist as justification for it.
In this case, that non-existent imprimatur is the well-worn classic; ‘safety’.
Specifically, the Act gives the Commissioner the power to “promote online safety to Australians”. The particularisation of this function can be found under Part 5 of the Act, which provides a definition for such power stating that “online safety for Australians means the capacity of Australians to use social media services and electronic services in a safe manner.” The term “safety” and “safe manner” are mentioned constantly throughout the Act, but no such specificity surrounding what determines safety, or its manner, are provided. How can such vague, all-inclusive language that provides almost unrestricted power to the Commissioner be allowed to be bestowed on an individual who is not subject to a democratic election or appointment by the general public the Commissioner serves?
Moreover, the definition belies a lack of utility. Using “social media services and electronic services in a safe manner” is a redundant phrase if “safe manner” is not itself defined.
In any case, the illusion of safety is as much of a false dawn in the online space as it is in nature. There is no such thing as ‘safety’, because one thing might be safe for one person but dangerous for somebody else. In addition, there is no growth and no humanity without harm and without suffering, because such is the human condition. The idea that anybody needs to be kept safe is not only infantilising, because we are capable of encountering and processing danger, but a profound misinterpretation of the human experience, because we have to encounter and process danger in order to grow.
In the language of human rights law, there can be no ‘self-determination’,[1] the cardinal principle of the seven primary international human rights treaties and covenants Australia is signatory to, without the freedom to place oneself, or find oneself, in danger.
Our full submission can be accessed here. Thank you to
and Alexander Hatzikalimnios who co-authored this submission and who did a majority of the work on it:
We encourage you to make your own, if you’d like.
[1] For example, see Part 1 Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, opened for signature 16 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171 (entered into force 23 March 1976).
"It is a statute typical of the Australian Government. It seeks to give an unelected bureaucrat as broad and unchecked power as possible to curb anything at all that the Australian Government does not like, using something that does not exist as justification for it."
How do we stop this government overreach into our lives?
I thought the idea was for governments to serve the people, but now we seem to be under tyranny.
I do not consent to this.
Before the computer age we just got on with our lives, without noticing government much. But now it's invading our lives all the time, particularly stealing our privacy and autonomy.
How do we stop it?
JURIES NULIFY BAD LAWS. Trial by Jury is Democracy - use it or lose it!